Driven by unrelenting demand in China and Hong Kong for the swim bladder of the giant totoaba fish, illegal fishing has remained rampant in Mexico’s upper Gulf, despite the government’s unprecedented push to ban gillnets from the region.

Driven by unrelenting demand in China and Hong Kong for the swim bladder of the giant totoaba fish, illegal fishing has remained rampant in Mexico’s upper Gulf, despite the government’s unprecedented push to ban gillnets from the region.

On a night of clear skies and calm seas, a motionless spot on a radar screen offered the first hint earlier this month that something was amiss in Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California, home to Mexico’s critically endangered vaquita porpoise.

Darkness brings out the totoaba fishermen, whose nets are pushing the vaquita towards extinction. And more than a mile away from the spot, crew members on the M/V Sam Simon were paying close attention.

Sending their drone to investigate, they soon could see live images of a small boat, or panga, with three people on board. Alerted by the sound, the panga’s occupants hurriedly dropped a gillnet — and fled toward shore.

Driven by unrelenting demand in China and Hong Kong for the swim bladder of the giant totoaba fish, illegal fishing has remained rampant in Mexico’s upper Gulf, despite the government’s unprecedented push to ban gillnets from the region.

The profits are tempting: according to a 2016 report, a totoaba fisherman can earn more than $8000 per kilo of bladder. Though the vaquita have no commercial value, they risk ending up as bycatch in the totoaba nets, and drowning.

Few have ever seen a vaquita, a sea mammal that is endemic to the Upper Gulf. The vaquita is naturally shy, and tends to travel in groups of two or three, surfacing briefly to breathe. With dark rings around its eyes and dark patches on its lips, it has been called Mexico’s panda, and scientists estimate its population at fewer than 30.

Two years after President Enrique Peña Nieto launched an ambitious effort to protect the vaquita, “there’s good cause to be worried,” said Barbara Taylor, a marine mammal expert at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla. “We see no evidence that things are getting better in terms of illegal fishing.”

In the meantime, tensions have been rising in San Felipe and Golfo de Santa Clara, the two main fishing communities that depend on the upper Gulf. Recent weeks have brought threats against an environmental group, public protests, and the destruction of government vehicles.

Among fishermen, much uncertainty prevails as an emergency gillnet ban enacted in 2015 ends this month, as does a compensation program that pays them not to use their gillnets. As the days pass, the questions are increasingly urgent.

Will the Upper Gulf gillnet ban become permanent after June 1 — as President Peña said it would last year during visit to the White House? Will Mexico’s government unveil new “vaquita safe” fishing gear by the end of this month so fishermen can earn a living? Will U.S. environmentalists decrying Mexico’s failure to protect the vaquita launch a boycott of Mexican shrimp?

The conservation organization Sea Shepherd is working in the northern Gulf of California with the blessing of the Mexican Government in attempt to save the embattled vaquita, the smallest cetacean in the world that is on the brink of extinction. Nearing the end of a two-year ban on fishing the area, fishermen will return to the sea with their gill nets if government doesn't delvelop alternative vaquita safe fishing gear.

(John Gibbins)

Environmentalists search for totoaba nets

Aboard the 182-foot M/V Sam Simon, the 25 crew members earlier this month were certain of one thing: totoaba fishermen were out there. And this international group of environmental activists was determined to find any illegal nets, and remove them.

They were volunteers with the the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a group that espouses direct action. They came from Australia, Austria, Canada, Italy, France, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Mexico, the United States, most serving anywhere from weeks to months at a time.

Canadian Brandon Abitbol, 25, paid his way from New Zealand, where he works as a welder. Carlotta Zanlari, 40, took leave from her job as a clerk at a toy store in Milan. Jack Hutton, 19, quit his job as a security camera technician in northern Ireland.

The volunteers speak passionately about protecting the environment, and say their battle transcends political boundaries. On board ship, the menu is vegan, the common language English. “Planet Earth” videos play in the break room.

“It was something I could not turn down,” said Abitbol. “Every time we remove one of these nets, there’s X number of animals that do not get caught.”

The head of Sea Shepherd’s operations in the upper Gulf, and the captain of the Sam Simon is 33-year-old French citizen, Oona Layolle. She first came to the Upper Gulf 2015, just as President Peña prepared to launch his two-year vaquita protection plan.

Today, Sea Shepherd is on its third campaign, with two anti-poaching vessels focusing on net removal, and a third on its way. The organization works closely with the Mexican navy, and with Mexico’s environmental watchdog agency, Profepa, calling in signs of illegal activity and removing nets — but avoiding any direct confrontation with poachers.

“The government of Mexico really invested everything they could to stop the illegal poaching activity,” Layolle said. “The problem is that locally there is a lot of corruption. There are not many arrests, illegal fishing keeps going on.”

One recent day, they found a dead dolphin tangled in a longline, retrieved a second longline attached to a floating buoy. Dragging a hook through the water after dark, it was not yet midnight when they picked up a totoaba net dropped by the panga fishermen spotted on their radar two hours earlier.

So far Sea Shepherd has picked up more than 300 illegal fishing gear, including 200 totoaba nets, winning both friends and enemies in the process. The Sea Shepherd was among those targeted in a demonstration last month, led the head of San Felipe’s largest fishing federation, Sunshine Rodríguez.

Layolle obtained an injunction after Rodríguez publicly threatened to sink the vessel, and burned a panga in effigy. In a recent interview, Rodríguez said the demonstration was simply an expression of frustration, to say, “Hello, NGOs, hello, government, if you want us out of the water, come on down here and show us how to make jobs.”

Scientists who have been urging measures to save the vaquita offer only praise for Layolle and her volunteers. “They are a key player, no doubt about it,” said Lorenzo Rojas Bracho, director of marine mammal conservation and research for Mexico’s National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change. “It’s a very good example of how NGOs and government can work jointly. It’s because of them that we know how bad the situation is. “If they weren’t there, we’d be thinking, it’s bad, but not that bad.”

High demand for totoaba bladder

A large fish that lives in the northern and central Gulf of California, the totoaba can grow to six feet and more than 200 pounds. Since the early part of the 20th century, its swim bladder has been sought out by Chinese consumers who believe it has curative powers.

A demand for totoaba fish also grew in Mexico and the United States. But declining numbers led to the collapse of the fishery, and a fishing ban in 1975, and two years later international trade was banned. Since 1996, the species has been listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Despite the prohibition on catching totoaba, clandestine trade has nonetheless continued. A September 2016 report by the London-based group Environmental Investigation Agency told of a surge in trade around 2010, “peaking in 2014 and driven by speculators and criminal groups attracted to rapidly rising prices.”

At the height of the trade, a local Mexican fisherman could receive up to $8,500 for a kilo of totoaba bladder, according to the report, “Collateral Damage.” In China, the dried bladder, known as maw, sold for $2,400 to over $25,000 per kilo, depending on the size and quality, the report found.

As the vaquita population has continued to plummet, scientists say gillnets are the culprit. And with their large mesh, and clandestine presence, totoaba nets have been identified as the major problem.

Last month, Mexico’s navy reported that in the past two years, they had conducted 180 arrests and numerous seizures: 188 small boats, 296 totoaba specimens, 319 totoaba swim bladders, 916 gillnets and other fishing gear.

“It’s a very big effort by the Mexican navy, and we have big allies with the NGOs,” said Alfonso Blancafort, the representative in Baja California for Mexico’s Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources. “But still, there are a lot of points where the panga can go in the water, they’re doing it at night with very small vessels, that Navy boats cannot access because the water is so shallow.”

The risks are growing for those who are caught. A new law passed by Mexico’s Congress last month makes illegal fishing a major felony. A vessel with three or more fishermen caught catching totoaba or other protected species now face charges of organized crime.

San Felipe’s fishermen grapple with gillnet ban

Set amid stark desert landscapes and the nutrient-rich green waters of the upper Gulf, San Felipe is a struggling port town of 30,000 residents whose economy has long depended on fishing and tourism.

This is where Peña Nieto came in April 2015 to announce his ambitious vaquita protection plan. The measures included the emergency gillnet ban; a two-year compensation program to support fishermen in the meantime; beefed up enforcement through Mexico’s navy; and a commitment to develop alternative “vaquita-safe” fishing gear.

“It’s an unprecedented effort,” said Blancafort, the official with Mexico’s environmental secretariat.

But two years are now up, and the compensation program runs out at the end of the month. Blancafort said Mexico’s National Fisheries Institute, INAPESCA, has been testing vaquita-safe fishing gear, but the agency has yet to make any announcements. Requests for interviews this week with officials from INAPESCA, and Mexico’s National Fisheries Commission, CONAPESCA went unanswered.

“It’s a feeling of powerlessness, of not knowing what’s going to happen starting in June,” said Ramón Franco Díaz, president of the Andrés Rubio Castro Federation of Fishing Cooperatives, one of two federations in San Felipe. “The question is how are we going to feed our families.”

As the deadline nears, tensions have risen amid the uncertainties ahead.

Last March in Golfo de Santa Clara, a small fishing community to the north of San Felipe, dozens of fishermen angry about the lack of corvina fishing permits destroyed 15 inspection vehicles and vessels belonging to Profepa, Mexico’s environmental watchdog agency.

A few days later, a group of protesters took to the streets of San Felipe, burning a panga bearing the names of the Sea Shepherd, Conapesca, and Profepa. Protest leader Sunshine Rodriguez, who heads San Felipe’s largest federation of fishing cooperatives, publicly threatened to burn and sink any Sea Shepherd vessels that remained in the region, saying they represent a foreign intrusion.

In an interview at his family-operated trailer park, Rodríguez said he was angry about a call by U.S. environmental groups to boycott Mexican shrimp — a campaign led by the Natural Resources Defense Council to pressure Mexican authorities to enforce the gillnet ban and protect the vaquita.

“We’re really feeling frustrated,” said RodrÍguez, a fluent English speaker who grew up on both sides of the border. A holdup in compensation payments has compounded the frustration for many fishermen.

Other fishermen have been working closely with environmental groups and the Mexican government to retrieve illegal nets and develop alternative fishing gear. They have rejected Rodríguez’s confrontational tactics, and say they want to develop sustainable fisheries for future generations.

But they are frustrated too.”If nothing is done, we’re going to have to to out to fish, those who are legal, those who are illegal it will be a total disorder,” said Javier Valverde, a longtime fisherman. “I can’t be without support for my family.”

The fishermen say a solution to the illegal fisheries could be legalizing and controlling totoaba fishing through sportfishing licenses.

In a report released Thursday, the group backed a high-risk plan to capture vaquita and hold them in an enclosed area of the upper Gulf.

The plans is being spearheaded by Mexico’s government, with support from a consortium called VaquitaCPR. It involves capturing as many vaquita as possible in October and November, and holding them in large enclosed area off of San Felipe until it is safe to release them to open water.

Bottlenose dolphins with the San Diego-based U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program are being enlisted for the project, and would help locate the vaquita through their ability to interpret echoes of sound waves underwater.

Sea Shepherd has spoken out against the project, but the World Wildlife Fund, which initially rejected the measure, now agrees with the proposal, according to a new report. But the plan must be carried out alongside measures that include a permanent gillnet ban and the espousal of “vaquita-safe” fishing measures.

According to VaquitaCPR, “the plan will be implemented in parallel with ongoing efforts to end illegal fishing and remove the threat of gillnets in the Upper Gulf of California.”

If the vaquita vanishes from the planet, said Rojas, CIRVA’S chairman, “it’s going to be a tragedy for conservation, not only for the vaquita.”